


Look to the Horizon

by angelskuuipo



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Early Work, Episode: s05e22 Not Fade Away, GFY, Gen, Gift Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-12
Updated: 2014-06-12
Packaged: 2018-02-04 10:34:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1775980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelskuuipo/pseuds/angelskuuipo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angel wakes up to a new life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Look to the Horizon

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Carla gave me ‘Master of my fate; captain of my soul.’  
> Author’s Note: This is a combination Thank You, Birthday, and Christmas Pressie fic for the splendiferous Carla. She helped create my new LJ layout, along with the new banners for my website. You are a gifted artist and a wonderful friend, my dear. I wish you much peace and happiness now and in the coming year. ::MWAH:: Thanks be to Gabrielle for the beta.  
> Originally posted 12-14-08.

[ ](http://angelskuuipo.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/445/82749)

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Angel was floating, or rather he felt like he was floating. Maybe he’d finally been turned to dust and his consciousness was infused into each particle. Maybe he was scattered to the four winds. He could drift away on the breeze and just…disappear. No more fighting. No more losing people he cared about. No more destroying one evil thing just to have three more take its place. No more suffering.

“Angel.”

He frowned. That voice almost sounded familiar. Should he be able to hear if he was dust?

“Angel.”

Flashes of red hair and green eyes played on the backs of eyelids he wasn’t sure he still possessed, the images going almost too fast to grasp.

“Angel, it’s time to wake up. It’s all over now. You’re safe. You’re alive.”

He could hear a drumbeat from somewhere close by. His chest started to feel heavy and he couldn’t understand why. If he was dust, then he couldn’t possibly feel a weight pressing down on his chest, could he? Maybe he wasn’t dust after all.

But if he wasn’t dust, why did he feel like he was floating?

The weight became unbearable and Angel took a breath to try and relieve it. Much to his surprise, the pressure eased and the drumbeat faded a little. It was still too close, but it wasn’t throbbing in his ears quite as much. He took another breath and another. It felt good. Natural. _Needed_.

“Angel. Please open your eyes. I really wanna see those pretty browns look at me.”

He knew that voice. He was sure of it now. She thought he had pretty eyes? If she was who he thought she was he couldn’t remember her ever acting like she had noticed his appearance. And that really wasn’t here or there at the moment. Right now, she wanted him to wake up. When had he fallen asleep? The last thing he remembered was swinging his sword at that hellbeast of a dragon. There was no way he would have decided to take a nap while fighting for his life. Obviously he wasn’t going to figure things out on his own, so he thought maybe he should listen to the sweet voice asking him to rejoin the world.

With a soft moan, Angel blinked a few times and opened his eyes. Bright blue sky was the first thing he saw, but that was wrong. He couldn’t be out in daylight. He squinted and tried to turn away, but he felt rather weak. The blue of the sky dimmed as someone leaned over him, casting his face into shadow.

“Hey there.”

Angel blinked again to focus on the face above him. Willow. That’s who’d been talking to him. He swallowed a couple of times then tried to speak. “What happened?”

Willow smoothed his hair off his forehead and he unconsciously leaned into her touch. She said, “You won.”

His eyebrows rose in surprise. “Are you sure? I seem to remember us being on the verge of losing completely.”

She smiled again. “Reinforcements arrived in the nick of time.”

“Oh. Good. That’s good. Willow? I feel really strange.”

She laughed a little. “I wonder why.” Then she took his hand in hers and settled his index and middle fingers against his neck. He frowned when he felt warm skin and the unmistakable _thump-thump_ of a heartbeat. _His_ heartbeat.

Angel’s eyes grew wide and he tried to sit up. A wave of dizziness assailed him, but he breathed through it and sat up with Willow’s help. He looked around and found that they were on a boat. That helped explain part of the floating sensation he felt. He looked at Willow again. “I don’t understand.”

Willow sighed softly and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She met Angel’s eyes and said, “The Black Thorn couldn’t take away your Shanshu, Angel. It wasn’t yours to sign away.”

Angel looked at her, dumbfounded. He had found the land of dumb. He heard her words and felt the proof, but couldn’t quite wrap his head around it. He was human? It just didn’t make any sense. Nothing he’d done in the last year equaled fulfilling the vague requirements of that prophecy.

“I don’t understand,” he said again. And maybe he was broken, because he wasn’t usually so slow on the uptake.

She looked at him in concern. “What don’t you understand, Angel?”

“After all the mistakes I’ve made in the last couple of years, how could I have possibly earned this? There’s no way. I persuaded my friends to sign their souls away to the devil. I got them killed. I’ve killed. This just isn’t possible.”

Willow stared at him for a long time. Then she shook her head. “Wow. Your years in L.A. really have given you a big head.” He looked at her in confusion and she smiled gently. “Angel, you are not all powerful. You didn’t _make_ your friends do anything. _You_ didn’t get them killed. They made their choices of their own free will and those choices led them to stand with you. I’ll give you the people you’ve killed, but let’s face it, with the exception of Drogyn, they were the worst humanity had to offer. Just because they had souls, that doesn’t mean they weren’t evil. And Drogyn was dying anyway, Angel. Killing him was a kindness after what the Black Thorn had done to him.”

Angel studied her. “How did you know about Drogyn?”

Willow shifted uneasily, but said, “I _saw_ , Angel. The Goddess showed me everything. I wasn’t about to abandon you all in your time of need. I just wish you’d come to me sooner.”

Angel’s eyes hardened a little. “We tried, Willow. When Illyria overtook Fred, we tried to reach you. Giles stonewalled us.”

“I know. Believe me, there are going to be words about that. And he’s gonna learn not to play God. But right now, I need to know that you’re going to be okay.” She smiled brilliantly at him and caught his hand. “Angel, you’re _human_! You can do anything you want to do. You can _be_ whatever you want to be. And I’m starting to sound like a cheesy motivational speaker.”

Angel chuckled and squeezed her hand. He carefully stood up and pulled her up with him. Then he took a good look around. Blue skies above and blue-green water all around. It was a gorgeous day. He could make out some islands in the distance. “Why are we on a boat?”

Hands still linked, Willow swung them gently. “We wanted somewhere quiet and private for you to wake up in. We weren’t sure how you were going to take things.”

Angel looked at her curiously. “We?”

That’s when the cabin door banged open and Spike walked out, followed by Connor, Dawn, and Faith. Angel looked at his…former childe and blinked. “ _Spike_ is human, too?!” he asked incredulously.

“I told you I’ve saved the world, you wanker. You weren’t the only souled vampire in town, remember?”

Angel looked at Willow and she shrugged. “I just did what I was told.”

He shook his head and looked at his son. “Connor.”

Connor smiled at him hesitantly. “Hey. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Angel remembered the last time he was on a boat with his son. He’d spent four months at the bottom of the Pacific. But looking at Connor now, he couldn’t see any of the hatred and near-madness that had been in his eyes then. “I’m…good. It’s a lot to take in.”

Connor nodded. “I can imagine.”

Dawn looked between the two of them and rolled her eyes. Then she bounced over and hugged Angel. “I am so happy for you two!”

He was a little surprised; Dawn had never really warmed to him, but wrapped his arms around her and hugged her back. He met Spike’s eyes over her head and saw the possessiveness in his gaze. He squeezed her one more time and let go. “Thanks, Dawnie.”

She made this happy little noise and beamed at him before skipping back over to Spike and wrapping her arms around one of his. Spike smiled in contentment and kissed her temple.

“Sunlight suits you, Angel,” Faith said as she moved towards him. “You need to get a tan workin’, though, ‘cause damn, you’re pale.”

He grinned at her. They stared at each other for a moment then Angel pulled her into a hug. She squeezed him tightly and he winced at her strength. Okay, this being human was going to take some getting used to. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“Any time,” she whispered back. Then she pulled away and coughed a little. His stomach chose that moment to growl loudly and she chuckled at the look on his face. “Why don’t we get some grub on? Don’t want either of you boys wasting away.”

Faith, Dawn, and Connor headed down to the galley while Spike moved to the bow of the boat to soak up the sun. Willow and Angel were left in the stern. They looked at each other for a long moment then Angel opened his arms and she stepped into them. They held each other for awhile before Angel pressed a kiss to her temple. “Thank you, Willow.”

She leaned back in his embrace and smiled up at him. She cupped his face in her hands and leaned up to press a gentle kiss to his lips. His eyelids fluttered closed and it took him a moment to open them again when the kiss ended. She said, “You’re welcome, Angel.”

They walked over to the railing, Angel’s arm still around her waist, and watched gulls and the occasional pelican dive at the water. It was a lot to take in, and he knew there were still questions to be asked and answered. This wasn’t going to be simple, but then not much in life was.

As he looked at the horizon, a poem he’d read long ago came to mind. It seemed fitting for the last few years. He murmured the last few lines and hugged Willow a little closer to his side,

_“It matters not how strait the gate,_   
_How charged with punishments the scroll,_   
_I am the master of my fate;_   
_I am the captain of my soul._

He had a whole new life before him and he wasn’t going to waste a moment.

-30-

Invictus by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,  
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,  
I thank whatever gods may be  
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance  
I have not winced nor cried aloud.  
Under the bludgeonings of chance  
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears  
Looms but the horror of the shade,  
And yet the menace of the years  
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,  
How charged with punishments the scroll,  
I am the master of my fate;  
I am the captain of my soul.


End file.
